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In these pages, the English spelling of the name of our motherland and mother tongue will remain Orissa and Oriya as before, instead of changing into Odisha and Odia.

Law has changed Orissa and its language Oriya to Odisha and Odia in English respectively. This is a very irresponsible law created by politicians having no knowledge on and devotion to classical uniqueness of Oriya language. When this bad law was on the anvil, we had opposed the proposal through several articles in these pages on grounds shown therein. And, when finally the law was created, we took it as an act of stupids. We stick to our observation and vow not to honor the bad law, come what may. For us, the classical uniqueness of our mother tongue Oriya is more important than the law enacted to change it. So, here we shall continue to use the words Orissa and Oriya notwithstanding enforcement of the law that has wrongfully changed them to Odisha and Odia. This is why this site will continue as orissamatters.com instead of converting into odishamatters.com on the strength of our devotion to the mother tongue which no law can change.
-Editor

Bhubaneswar:
It is mandatory for the taxi operators to use meters in their vehicles and to charge customers as per rate fixed on reading of the meter. But the law remains dormant and the tourists left to the mercy of operators. It has been affecting very adversely Orissa Tourism.

Reminding the transport department of their responsibility to enforce provision of meters in the taxis, Tourism Minister S.N.Patro has given a month for its implementation. The officials are asked to have discussions with taxi owners through their organization and settle the rate chart to be enforced.

No taxi without the required meter will be allowed to run on road after a month, Patro has stipulated.

Patros decision is expected to benefit thousands of tourists to the temple city of Bhubaneswar where there are more than a thousand ancient temples and monuments to visit.

The state government has been going on signing Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) one after another with industries allured by the mineral wealth of Orissa. People are being displaced and mayhems are witnessed in official attempts to suppress the voice of the inhabitants who are loosing their land, their home, their hearth, their environment and their way of life. They are being sacrificed at the altar of industrialists avarice. But the government has all along maintained that the MOUs it is signing up are meant to create maximum job opportunity in the State so that unemployment problem could be solved.

Had it been the real reason, we would have commended the Government, in spite of our strong and specific opinion that the mineral deposits of the State should not be exhausted in one generation by one government elected for only five years. But it is not.

We regret to note that the government does not know as to how many job opportunities would be provided by the mineral based industries. Chief Secretary Subas Panis direction to Director of Technical Education and Training to contact each of the Industries to assess their manpower requirement is a pointer to this.

The CS took a meeting with officials of the Industry department on June 04 to review the possible employment opportunities the industries offer. The industry department was found to be in dark. Hence it was decided to approach each of the industries with an appropriate format to collect information on the size of staff they shall have besides the scope of job opportunities the shall generate. After assessing this, training facilities for students would be built up to meet the manpower requirement in the industrial sector.

Now, therefore, it is unambiguously clear that the State has not assessed which particular industry should employ how many persons and in which specific discipline before signing MoUs. How then has it been patronizing grabbing of our mineral wealth by private industries?